Friday night South Oakland lost 4-0 in a bizarre game to D2. D2’s starter threw well, and we were short a few players. Then in the second inning, our starting pitcher got hurt, and Patton filled in and threw well for the last 4 innings. D2 scored on an error on a dropped fly ball with 2 outs in the first. In the third they were aided by a single that took a six foot hop over our second baseman. They scored another run on a throwing error by our pitcher. I don’t know how they scored their other run. some guy doubled.

The umps admitted they blew the play on the intentional drop that D2 turned into a double play. We had first and third with no outs and their second baseman intentionally dropped a soft liner. Heads up play, but not a legal one. Our next batter popped out anyway.

And we left guys on base all game. It was frustrating. The umps didn’t lose us that one, but they were not great for either team. I think someone skipped a few batters in our book. It’s hard to read.

The biggest loss of the game was Colton Fago pulling his hamstring in the seventh inning after hitting a leadoff double. Fago was scheduled to start the next game at Cranberry, but is now on the injured list.

Saturday we went to Cranberry and again made just enough mistakes to give them a couple runs, and didn’t hit well enough to overcome those mistakes. Cranberry scored a run on a dropped pop-up, and a couple hits that should have been caught, also one on a throwing error on a pickoff attempt.

It was a lot like Friday.

On the bright side, Matt Mullen pitched great in his first start, filling in for Fago. Fago’s injury made us worse at two positions defensively even if the pitching was still good enough to win. We moved an infielder to the mound, an outfielder to the infield, and our DH to the outfield, and it hurt us. We still should have been able to score more runs, but we never seem to hit Cranberry, ever. Germani and the guy with the beard shut us down pretty routinely. However, a couple guys had good days at the plate. Casale hit three doubles, Lombardi and Brandt drove in runs, and Mullen hit a double and scored.

So now we’re going into Tuesday and Wednesday with a depleted bullpen, but we should be ok. our weekday lineup is typically strong.

South Oakland plays next on Tuesday, 6:45 at Mellon Park against the Oilers.